User talk:SMcCandlish

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Logorrhoea

Unresolved

– Article still not split.

Hi there. I see you've done some work on the Logorrhoea article and was wondering whether or not you had read my comments on the discussion page there. IMHO the section on rhetoric is sub-par in many ways and actually I was considering expanding the mental health part and significantly trimming the rhetoric part, which mostly appears to be the opinion of people who don't like high-falutin' sentence structures.

Are you suggesting we split Logorrhoea into (use in rhetoric) and (use in medicine)? --PaulWicks 12:18, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dicussion moved to direct e-mail (short version: YES. Better to split than to remove material.) --Smccandlish 05:39, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note to self: Logorrhoea (rhetoric) should just be merged into Prolixity anyway. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] - 05:40, 5 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You managed to work the word "Logorrhoea" into an edit summary of some work I did on Labile affect. Nice. --PaulWicks 21:47, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Was vocabulary practice. I'd just been at the L. page, and thought I'd try making myself use it (and even use the UK spelling); I usually use "prolixity"; it sounds less insulting! Heh. ;-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 21:50, 19 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Active guideline

Resolved

– I don't archive this one, as it serves as a good cautionary tale against abuse of user-warning templates.

The consensus on the wikipedia:naming conventions (books) guideline *including notes on notability* was prior to wikipedia:notability (books) being started. There is no consensus on that new proposal. Until there is, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Note on notability criteria is the *active* guideline on book notability. --Francis Schonken 15:44, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Out of plain curiosity, I'd like to see evidence of that, specifically that the passage in question was present and substantively identical to its current wording at the pont of transition from a draft Guideline on book naming conventions to a non-draft one. But it's a moot point. It is almost ludicrously inappropriate for a non-controversial guideline on naming conventions to have a totally off-topic rider in it that attempts to set a guideline in one of the most hotly-debate spheres of Wikipedia, namely "notability". If this rider was present in the original draft naming convention for books, it is entirely possible that the only reason it survived is precisely because it was a hidden rider - few who would have any reason to object would ever notice it and weigh in. If it ever represented any form of consensus at all it was only a consensus among people who a) care about book naming conventions, and (not or) b) either support the vague notability rider, didn't notice it or didn't care either way. Ergo it it not a real Wikipedia consensus at all. But even this is moot. The existence of an active push to develop Wikipedia:Notability (books) demonstrates that there is in fact no consensus at all, period, that the notability rider in the naming article is valid. If it remains, I'm taking this to arbitration, because I believe the presence of the rider to be deceptive and an abuse of the Policy/Guideline formulation process and consensus mechanism. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 16:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From proposal to guideline, 09:07, 25 January 2006 — no changes to the "Note on notability criteria" section.
From the day it became guideline to today, 16:29, 23 July 2006 — no changes to the "Note on notability criteria" section.

--Francis Schonken 16:37, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. But as I said, I think this is a moot point. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 17:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Warning

Please refrain from removing content from Wikipedia, as you did to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books). It is considered vandalism. If you want to experiment, please use the sandbox. Thank you.

You reverted the *consensus* version of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Note on notability criteria to the version you had proposed earlier today. That version of yours is not consensus, and you knew that when you reverted. For guidelines one needs a new consensus for major changes. Yours was a major change. It had no consensus. So I'm posting this warning on your user page, and will then proceed to revert the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Note on notability criteria section to the version that had consensus when that became a guideline about half a year ago.

You're welcome to discuss other versions of that section (whether that be a temporary version until Wikipedia:Notability (books) becomes guideline or a more permanent solution) on the Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (books) talk page. But consensus is needed before it can be moved to the guideline page. --Francis Schonken 16:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cute, but a total misdirection (as to at least three claims, of consensus, my tacit agreement that consensus existed, and new edit not reflecting consensus, and possibly a forth, as to edit scope. I do in fact dispute, in more than one way, that the section in question represents any meaningful consensus, for reasons already stated and evidenced. I contend that it is someone's "pet" section and removable as such; that it is an off-topic insertion and thus subject to removal on other grounds; and that even if it had some merit at one point it has been superceded by the current Wikipedian editors' consensus on this topic (which is that the topic needs a Guideline, period, so one has been started as a Proposal; notably it is not a consensus that the rider needs editing and improvement; rather it is being replaced, to the extent its existence has even been acknowledged. To continue, I further assert that removing the rider would in fact be a consensus move. Wikipedia:Notability (books) would not be well on the way to becoming a Guideline if there were any consensus that the off-topic notability rider in the naming guideline already had any consensus support whatsoever. It is very notable that no one has proposed a section merger or in any other way addressed the rider as valid or worth even thinking about. It is simply being ignored. And I assert further that it is at least questionable whether it is a "major edit" to remove a small section that is more adequately covered by another article (whether that article is considered "finished" or not) that has a lot more editorial activity and interest, and replace the redundant section it with a cross-reference to the latter, as I did.

The fact that no one has even touched the rider at all since Jan. strongly supports my points that a) virtually no one who cares about notability of books is aware of it, got to debate its inclusion, or even considers it worth working on or authoritative in any way, because the topic of how to define book notability is generating quite a bit of activity on the other article; and therefore b) it reflects no consensus on the topic of book notability, period. Which is what one would expect, given that it's buried at the bottom of an article about spelling! I also dispute the notion that an approved Guideline on [Topic A] is also an approved Guideline on unrelated [Topic B] just because it happens to mention some ideas relating to how to deal with [Topic B]. If you are aware of another example, I'd love to see it.

PS: I'm posting most of this, with further (case-closing, in my opinion) facts, references and evidence, on the article's talk page, since otherwise the debate won't affect anyone's views other than yours and/or mine in User talk.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 17:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Update

Months later, the points I raised were never refuted or even questioned at the talk page in question, and Wikipedia:Notability (books) is well on the way to becoming a Guideline, meanwhile Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books)#Note on notability criteria was nominated two more times for removal, with the unanimous support of those who commented, and was replaced with a wordy wikilink to Wikipedia:Notability (books). I rest my case. One may wish to actually look into establishing what consensus really is on whatever matter is at hand before presuming to lecture others about it. PS: The abuse of {{Test2a-n}} on my Talk page (it is intended, and instructed, to be used in series with {{Test1}} or a variant thereof) was very heavy-handed. I'm leaving it up instead of archiving it, because I think it says far more about abuse of the label "vandal" than it does about me. >;-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 10:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Eight ball

Unresolved

– Actually making the eight-ball article cover everything described, and as-described, above.

Gad what a mess eight ball is. I'm gearing up to rewrite it if I can figure out a logical way of doing so. Regarding you query on the section about the Mexican ruleset (where you wrote "Is there a name for this?"), I don't know of a name but I know the origin, and if I can get off my ass and do the cleanup I can take care of it. In short, after B.B.C. Co. Pool was invented, eight ball went through a number of distinct ruleset periods. One of them, which lasted for a number of years, had these exact rules. Once that is defined, it can be added that these rules are still used in Mexico.--Fuhghettaboutit 14:29, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to me. The blackball section could probably use expansion. My take on it is that it should dispense with the "possible" ruleset language, describe the intl. std. rules, and if/where they differ mention that the APA or VNEA or BCA or whatever rules differ on this little point[cite], and continue. Amat. variations like bank-the-eight and last-pocket should remain in a "rules variations" section. Yes? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 14:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm really not sure exactly how to do it, and I agree that "possible variations" is clunky as hell, but here's what has been percolating 1) continue the history section I started, going into the variations up to the modern era. Then define the world standardized rules. Then the standard bar/recreational rules and how they differ from the BCA (with some explication of that there is no standard because no formal ruleset, but widely followed and explain that they vary). Then we can go into game variations such as last pocket, etc.. Last pocket, by the way, is apparently very, very widely played variation in South America.--Fuhghettaboutit

I'd suggest doing the WS rules, and interspersing them with Big League differences as needed (BCA/VNEA/Blackball/APA/IPT), just to keep it shorter - might be a bit frustrating to have follow-on sections like "BCA exceptions", "VNEA exceptions", etc.; then close with a section on amat./"bar rules" variations (which will need somehow to discourage additions of "in my neighborhood..." variants; I think the present HTML comment language is probably a good start). Agreed that last-pocket is huge in Latin America; was why I added it. EVERY native Mexican, El Salvadorean, Nicaraguan, etc., that I've met plays that way (and not the "magic side pockets" way detailed earlier in the article; I'd demote that to a minor variation), and without any differences (e.g. as to 2 free scratches, etc.) It seems quite uniform. There's a bar called City Club in the Mission district of San Francisco with really great players none of whom seem to speak a word of English where what I described are the house rules. The players are from all over Latin America, quite friendly to Gringos if we can figure out the rules, and they never internally argue about the rules - these seem to be the rules they've all played with their whole lives. It's a called ball-in-pocket (not called shot) game, e.g. "cinco en está lado" however way the five gets into the designated side pocket, which I forgot to mention, so it has a bit in common with the older (pre WS) BCA rules, I think. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 15:25, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well maybe it's my POV, but the way I see it the article should start with WSR as the "official rules" and then in subsequent sections instead of defining the whole rulesets, siimply state how they depart from the official rules. For instance for bar'recretaional rules (which I do think need to be prominent as they are so widely played--probably the most wide ruleset for the most common game in the U.S.) all that needs to be done, is state that (in contradistinction to official rules): wins (or not) if eight ball made on break, choice of group is decided on the break, if both groups pocketed then it's choice, no foul rules but for scratches, scratch penalty is from the kitchen (and can move object ball to foot spot if none available), most but not all venues make you call every nuance of every shot (rather than "ball and pocket"), the Player loses sometimes if he doesn't contact the eight ball when it's his object ball, eight ball has to go in "clean", and the alternating racking crap. That's may not be exhaustive but there's not much more. If those distinctions follow a treatise on the correct rules, little defining should be necessary, so the section would not need to be very long.

Doing it by defining each separate ruleset's variation for each official rule would be confusing I think, and an invitation for endless parenthetical notes. Plus, the way articles evolve, people add a one-off difference from some game to one section and then go their merry way. So then we have each official rule followed by variations from some other groups of indistinct rules, with each official rule being treated separately, some getting variations some not from the same league rules. It seems to me it would lead to an organizational mess.--Fuhghettaboutit 16:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds reasonable to me. Just wanted to make sure that the VNEA, etc., variations get in there, and are differenced from the mess of "bar pool" variations; many of them predate the WSR by a long way. :-) NB: "Rules variations" or "variants" seems like a good section heading, perhaps with a three-"=" subsection header for each set discussed? I'm thinking in terms of the promised but presently vaporware article "templates" at WP:CUE. I guess eight-ball is as good a place as any to start developing that. NB: Also thinking that the "rack" article could really be folded entirely or almost entirely into the articles about the various games it covers. I think this sort of opens the more general question of what to do about equipment articles. My present take is that I'm not sure we actually need articles about cues, chalk, racking, tables, etc., rather than general mentions at Billiards (side point: Should we move it to Cue sport now?) and more specific details under particular games (nine-ball, etc.) or game-type (carom billiards, snooker, etc.) articles. This is probably a better pack o' questions for Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cue sports but I don't see any reason to not come to a two-person initial mini-consensus on the direction here. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 16:24, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wholeheartedly agree that subtopic articles should only be taken so far, but I don't think articles on specific items of equipment or specific things such as racking are too far. Let's look at rack (billiards) for example (and of course the elephant in the room is that I wrote the majority of that article, but I'm not just being protective): First and foremost, I can see someone coming to Wikipedia interested in how racking is done across many billiard games. Second, I can see someone coming to Wikipedia seeking clarity because of the confusing multi-use of the word (physical object; various types; used to describe the balls in starting position; the verb for placing the balls, etc.). Third, there is a quite limited number of specific objects and things in billiards of which racking is one. We don't and never will need an article on the foot spot--how much history can be found on that topic? How much room for expansion? It's a blackhole of content, but when it comes to racking, breaking, english, I think they can all have subarticles if someone is willing to take the time to write them (citing ulitmately to reliable sources:-). There is much room for expansion of racking, from other games, to the history of it, to primary manufacturers, to the Sardo tight rack (and the controversy that has arisen in professional play over its use), etc. Or take cuetips, they have a fascinating history and there has been much written about them. Did you known leather cue tips were invented in debtor's prison by Captain Francois Mingaud around 1823 who was later accused of sorcery for the amazing things he was able to do on a billiards table using them? Regarding cue sports, I have not really been following the debate. I'm not too concerned since if it's done or not done, the information will be retained and having been following the debate too much. If you have consensus, go for it.--Fuhghettaboutit 17:35, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the info will just have to be a little duplicative (in that the details on how to rack for eight-ball specifically need to be in the eight-ball article as well, etc. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 05:10, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Polish interwiki

Unresolved

– Eight-ball ⇒ Blackball (pool) split done, but Irish standard pool merge to latter not done.

OK, sorry. I thought that Irish standard pool and english 8-ball are the same, looking at the pictures. Aren't they? Can you explain me the difference between these two billiard games? Thanks for information, Maciek17 21:30, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They are very, very similar, which is why Irish standard pool has been slated for merging into eight-ball#UK just before eight-ball#UK forks off into the blackball (pool). Irish standard pool is not quite the same as UK-rules eight-ball - different enough that the interwiki is misinformation - but similar enough that the articles can be merged, and handled with simply an "Irish variation" section, if you see what I mean. Dealing with all of that is, I think, the 2nd-highest priority on my WP to-do list, so it will be taken care of very soon. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 21:37, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Resolved

Unresolved

– Better template documentation still needed.

Thanks for the reply. I think when I clicked on the template it only brought me to the image, and not the description and talk pages. The link is back now. The template's been around for 10 months or so, and I'm surprised I'm only seeing it for the first time. I was a bit doubtful about it, because I can see some users pasting it in to guillotine an argument - but it's only an indicator with nothing final about it.--Shtove 11:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Guillotine usage should be reverted and criticized. I think the template itself should be udpated with a note that such use would be abuse. I think it does already say that if anyone thinks a tagged topic is not resolved they should just remove the tag. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 17:31, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to VandalProof!

Unresolved

– I still need to actually install this.

Thank you for your interest in VandalProof, SMcCandlish! You have now been added to the list of authorized users, so if you haven't already, simply download and install VandalProof from our main page. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or any other moderator, or you can post a message on the discussion page. Betacommand ^{(talk • contribs • Bot)} 03:30, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strickland pics

Unresolved

– I wrote to that Mike guy, but did not hear back. Try again.

Hi :)

AZ Billiards replied to my request to use their photo of Strickland. Here's what they said:

>Use any of the ones that are credited to Diana Hoppe. Just make sure that you credit her as 'Diana Hoppe - Pool Pics by Hoppe'.

>Thanks, >Mike

Does that make it sound like we can source their photo? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by MichaelJHuman (talk • contribs) 18:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Probably. Do you have a last name and contact info for "Mike"? If you get me the details I can take care of this at the image page (use e-mail - see e-mail link at top of my userpage; other people's e-mail addresses shouldn't ever be put into WP pages, even talk pages, since spammers can harvest them, even from article histories!) If you want to do the license tagging and stuff yourself, a good trick is do something like 'Mike Smith, contactable at the site "AZBilliards.com", with a username of "MSmith"', so e-mail address harvesters won't recognize it as an e-mail address but any human could figure it out. But anyway, I know how to source pics with the right licensing templates, so it might be easier for me to deal with it. You could just forward me a copy of the e-mail. Might be good for more than one of us to have a copy of it anyway, just in case!

Oh! Can you write back and ask him if this means we can use other photos (of other players and stuff) by same photographer? Their "any of the ones" language suggests this, but I think we should know for certain. That could come in very, very handy. Or I can do it; either way. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 19:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Admin coaching and virtual classroom

Unresolved

– Still need to do all this (completely).

Are you interested in joining the Virtual Classroom for admin coaching? --Dweller 08:41, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a good idea! — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 19:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Great. I've just created a section for you at User:The_Transhumanist/Virtual_classroom/Coaching. Pop along, say hello and get accustomed to the way the page works (it's a transclusion-fest) and the kind of tasks that get handed out. You can kick off by responding to some of The Transhumanist's general comments. --Dweller 10:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Are you still interested in joining this project? If not, I'll take down your section for you. --Dweller 10:20, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, yes! I just got swamped with other stuff. Tomorrow, ironically, I'm re-enrolling in the Univ. of New Mexico (finishing my degree is 14 years overdue). I'll guess I'll be getting educated on both sides. >;-) Sorry for the delay; I didn't realize it was interactive or time-limited in anyway. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, it's certainly interactive, but not at all time-limited. I just wondered if your lack of interaction <grins> was due to changing your mind! --Dweller 10:55, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, no; there's all sorts stuff I still need to learn about the inner workings. In my year-and-a-half+ I've picked up a lot, but sometimes still put my foot in my mouth or trip over myself; see my last archive page and look for the "f.u."-image anti-barnstar I got from someone. While the message attached to it isn't entirely accurate (the MfD itself wasn't the problem, my extensive over-argumentation in it was), I did get the point. On the technical side, I've spent literally hundreds of hours DEFAULTSORTing biography articles' talk pages so that the embedded categories in the WikiProject tags on them would sort the names by family name, only to learn two days ago that (due to an apparent MediaWiki bug; this only happens on talk pages) the DEFAULTSORT magicword must come after any such project tags (and will then work as intended, despite the docs at meta suggesting that it would not; go figure). Neither of these are particularly adminnish of course. I don't right off-hand recall any serious misapprehensions of policy or procedures any time since last year. I guess that's a good sign. I just need to learn to let irrational arguments have their 15 minutes instead of trying to stomp on them, and actually research the effectiveness of what I'm doing before blowing incredible amounts of time on it. <sigh>. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:30, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, it's a learning experience round here all right. The VC will mostly help by grilling you on your understanding and application of policy relating to the most adminnish stuff, like deciding on notability, POV issues, AfD arguments etc --Dweller 11:34, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I look fwd. to it. I suspect I'll be a "star pupil" on that stuff since I've already aborbed much of those areas (though I never pretend I have nothing to learn.) Perhaps an Advanced Course would be in order at some point, on things like the exactitudes of closing XfDs, and how exactly "consensus" is determined, especially if a plain "vote" count would appear to countermand it overwhelmingly; how to challenge a seemingly incautious or inattentive and clearly wrong closure of "keep" (by head count, 8 of 10 said "keep", but it was all "I like it" and "me too!" b.s.), and the rational consensus was clearly "delete", without getting into an adminfight; whether or not and how to respond to plaintive demands for userspacing of a deleted-with-overhwhelming-prejudice-I-mean-consensus >;-) article when it is at least somewhat likely that the user will just repost it under a diffent name, but could just as plausibly sit on it for a year working on it until it is properly sourced; what to do about a previously deleted article or category or whatever that has been restored in roughly its same form, but consensus may have changed as to the nature of that particular beast or its overarching classification; what to do with a repeat "eat my (expletive)" and "cripples are stuppid (expletive)s" vandal IP which may not be the same person but 2-8 dorks from the same school, and there is plenty of evidence of constructive edits from the same IP address in the same time frame (I confess now that I lean toward Zero Tolerance; this is not the WP of 2003 any longer...); how to archive, and set up for the next day, CfD or some other XfD page; what to do with quasi-vandals who never quite cross the line such that they can definitively be declared at least disruptive - just RIGHT on the edge, perhaps for weeks, backing off seemingly at the last moment and being real nice, but then jackassing again 6 days later; what to do about a fellow admin who keeps calling others "disruptive" or otherwise trasgressive simpl for disagreeing with or challenging him, and then dominating a discussion or revert wa<cough> I mean editing session (in a non-admin space, like Chocolate or WP:MASTODON or WP:BIOGRAPHY or whatever, rather than somewhere like WP:AN/I where other admins would notice (I mean, I'm not a party to the dispute, I just see it happening); how to avoid falling for a very plausibly presented (i.e. studiously engineered) "I've been wronged" story, where someone has "clearly" been blocked for insufficient reasons... until 5 admins ream you for so-and-so diff you didn't see, where "poor little" blocked kid made 15 death threats; how to deal with a blatantly obvious sockpuppet (even a metapuppet of another sockpuppet of another, ultimately of a real user who was community-banned 18 months ago), who is @#$%ing up RfAs, and seems to live for it, but you don't quite have enough proof, perhaps in part because checkuser was declined, as it sometimes is; or...

Those are the kinds of questions that come to me the most. The weird stuff, in a sense, but all of those are based at least in part on Real Stuff; they're not entirely hypothetical, though some are conflated with each other or sillified to get to the point faster.

Anyway, nap-time for me. I hasta' goto skool tumorrogh. Wish me luck. I haven't been to college since 1993! Or was it '92? Gah... Time flies when you move all over the continent, I guess... <ping-pong!>

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:19, 29 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A link to your coaching page has been added to the Virtual Classroom box above. There are assignments waiting for you there. The Transhumanist 18:27, 18 July 2007 (UTC) [reply]

There's also a quiz for ya. Hope to see ya soon. The Transhumanist 22:44, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for the delays; I am swamped with summer university courses and "real work". I will try to get to this as time permits, and I have in fact been reviewing the material. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. We've got a classroom collaboration going. It's developing the article meaning of life to featured article status. Keep tabs on us, and jump in and help when you find yourself with some free time. The Transhumanist 20:54, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Still out-standing: I need to, um, do this. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Transhumanist 00:24, 31 July 2007 (UTC) [reply]

Still out-standing: Need to actually do this. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've restored the Virtual classroom's main discussion area. The previous one got chopped up into student coaching pages.

The current topic of discussion is Trends on Wikipedia and where we are heading. Please come and join us.

The Transhumanist 22:24, 17 August 2007 (UTC) [reply]

I will when active again; I have decided after a lot of thought on the matter that I probably will go for a second RfA at some point, so the VirtClass is back on my radar, as it seems that any evidence of admin mentoring and other forms of training are helpful at RfA in ensuring that people think you'll make a good admin. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Still out-standing: I need to do this still. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Name of WCBS

Unresolved

– Did not get a reply from source; try again.

You maoved the page of WCBS form "World Confederation of Billiards Sports" to "World Confederation of Billiard Sports". I wonder what the true name is. As what I find at the official homepage, the haeding is "World Confederation of Billiards Sports".

However, in the constitution of WCBS, it states that in article 1.1 "The name of this controlling sports organization shall be the WORLD CONFEDERATION OF BILLIARDS SPORTS (WCBS), which was inaugurated on January 25, 1992 at Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland". So, which name is true?

As the constitution shall be the founding document of an organization, I would say "WORLD CONFEDERATION OF BILLIARDS SPORTS" should be the true name. Do you agree with me? Salt 11:16, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's an odd case. I got the singular from their website (and I think you meant the singular in your first example). They aren't even consistent on their own site, though. Next, the International Olympic Committee (pretty much the only reason the WCBS exists) actually refers to them as both, in the same IOC document! I don't really know what to make of that. I guess the organizational constitution is the best countervailing evidence there is, and could plausibly be said to outweigh their cheesy website. But on the other hand, their site is by far their most public face, and the name change may both be intentional and not be reflected in documents available at the site (organizational founding documents get modified by board quorum all the time with addenda and so forth, that the webmaster may not have thought to post copies of in this case; in the US at any rate, the original documents never change, just have appendices added to them showing changes made by board resolution; the resolutions are separate documents.) The only way to resolve the matter may be to actually call them up and ask. GHits for the singular form are around 1500, and for the plural form over 2000, but that doesn't really mean much. If the name change is for real and was semi-recent, we'd expect the numbers to be skewed in precisely this way. <ponder> For the interim, no harm is being done - both names work here. I think I consistent-ized all WP mentions to the same spelling (or at least linked ones; I forget if I used "Search" or "What links here"; it's been a busy day...) I tend to lean toward changing it back to the plural form, but there are plenty of organizations that do things like this on purpose. For silly example, the Jehosephat Foundation might consistently use that name, in every way, with the sole exception of their foundation documents, tax records and other government paperwork saying that the legal name of the entity is the Ebenezer and Gertrude Jehosephat Memorial Endowment Foundation and Trust of New York, Incorporated. Best for us to find out for sure what the real name is. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:45, 12 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I have sent WCBS an inquiry about this matter. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kudos re: Category:Articles missing birth or death information

Unresolved

– Need to finish the cleanup.

It's my turn to give kudos---and they're definitely called for. What a monumental task---standardizing all thirteen existing "Year/Date/Place missing/unknown" Categories and, to top it off, recreating the unfairly-singled-out-for-deletion Category:Date of birth unknown and creating the previously-never-existing, but also needed, analogous Category:Date of birth missing (living people). While it's a somewhat controversial Category, I can certainly argue that well-known actors, newscasters, sports stars, top business executives and other indisputably public personalities whose dates have not been provided, may be listed. I will, undoubtedly, be challenged on this point, but the basic idea stands, and each matter can be resolved one individual at a time. As to the four-day-old "outsider" Category:Year of birth uncertain, it theoretically overlaps the other three "Year of birth" Categories, "missing", "missing (living people)" and "unknown" but, if it survives, it might have a specialized use in biographies of individuals whose age is stated in a newspaper article, but the year of birth is unavailable, so that it can be either, for example, 1948 or 1949 (in the case of Nora Astorga) or 1975-76 (in the case of Cynthia Ore). But to return to your solo achievement, it is an act which cried out for completion since the "missing/unknown" Categories were first created. No one, myself included, fully stepped up to the plate and brought to pass an overarching consistency to the project. It was all being done piecemeal with varying introductions and elucidations. In addition, you properly brought Category:Living people, Category:Possibly living people, Category:Disappeared people and Category:Dead people into the mix and annotated the discussion pages for all those Categories (another herculean task) to examine every point raised and suggestion made over the past (nearly) two years. All in all, a living (people) example of creativity and an illustration of be bold philosophy. —Roman Spinner (talk) 21:18, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just getting started really! The actual text of all those things needs lots more consistentizing. Will take some time...

C:Dobm(lp) — I think that the cited policies are pretty clear on what is and isn't permissible, and abuse should be handled on an article-by-article basis. Getting rid of the category won't do anything at all to stop people from adding too-personal info the articles of non-public figures. Please let me know if anyone attacks either of these categories in a substantial way (I have them watchlisted, but my WL is over 1200 pages...), or any of the others. I see them all as necessary (though only a tiny handful as necessary on the article page rather than talk page).

C:Yobuncertain — Didn't even notice it! Will have to have a look at it and think on it. At first blush, I don't see that C:Yobunknown doesn't entirely cover it (even if more commonly used for "we have no idea at all and never will"; the difference appears to only be a matter of degree. If people are using it for "there is an editor dispute about the YoB" or "I wrote this and I'm not sure", that's probably not good enough to justify the category. It should either be removed and discussed on the talk page, or tagged with {{fact}}, {{dubious}}, or {{disputable}}, as closest fits the issue. For any case where the sources aren't specific enough, or two sources disagree, or a source and a statement by the person disagree or whatever, there is an appropriate inline template (see WP:WPILT).

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement; I will continue (at some point; working on something that will ease a lot of U.S. major topic (states, congress, etc.) WikiProject consistency headaches right now, and have other stuff in the pipe. I do go on a "tear" of activity in areas like the year/date/place of birth/death stuff where I see the need from time to time, but often take a break of a few days. I half feared someone from WP:BIO would get upset with me and revert it all. Heh.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:29, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, SMcCandlish ... I noticed a bot putting Category:Place of birth missing on Discussion pages (although apparently not removing it from the articles, at least not yet) and tracked you down from your comment on the category's Discussion page ... I was trying to locate the CFD discussion so I could find out exactly what the current consensus view is, but thought that asking you would be easier than trying to manually search the archives, and then I discovered that it was already linked to the edit summaries. (D'oh! :-)

My interest has to do with my draft Protocol to minimize friction from proposed and speedy deletions in which I recommend adding "Year/Place of birth missing" to stubby biographical articles that lack WP:A to satisfy WP:BIO ... I use it as a benchmark for WP:N on the assumption that there should be enough WP:RS available to provide that information in the opening sentence of an article, otherwise there has not been enough "ink" about the subject to WP:V the assertions of satisfying WP:BIO ... please see User talk:72.75.70.147#Request for comments on protocols and templates for proposed and speedy deletions where I use Don Fernando (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) as an example that may not satisfy WP:PORNBIO. (FYI, I didn't know about C:Yobm(lp) and C:Pobm(lp) until reading this thread, or else I would have been using them instead of C:Yobm and C:Pobm ... I'll go back and modify my draft protocols and essays to use them instead.)

Anywho, I would appreciate any comments you may have on my draft protocols like User talk:72.75.70.147/Warn-bio (note particlularly 3rd Step: Tag the article) and the boilerplate templates I have created for the first two steps ... BTW, I have not yet pinged the admins listed in my request for comments, so you would be the first to respond.

Happy Editing! —72.75.70.147 (talk · contribs) 08:45, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

User:SMcCandlish/List of ways to verify notability of articles

Unresolved

– Figure out how to integrate this with Wikipedia:Notability/Historical.

Sorry for not getting back to you earlier. Here you go. Just poke me back when you are done with it, to delete it again. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:50, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Or I'll just slap a db-userreq on it. No biggie. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Erm... difficult issue (RFA advice)

Stale

– Clarification query still open.

Hi. Hope you've seen my "quiz" at the VC. Meanwhile, hope you don't mind if I raise a delicate issue with you. Presumably, you're considering a run at RfA at some point in the near future. I gently suggest that if you tone down your user page it might remove one reason for opposing. I've seen many oppose !votes based on peoples' user pages and I've always felt it's a shame. Anyway, forewarned is forearmed, although sadly not four-armed (that'd be useful) and at least now that I've mentioned it, you have a heads-up. --Dweller 19:18, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Something I'll consider and keep in mind. I'm unlikely to try an RfA again until some time next year; my WP:PROCESS stickling in the WP:ATT debate made me too many unfriends in the pro-ATT camp. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:05, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, fair enough. Though I might try changing your mind in a couple of months, lol. --Dweller 07:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Someone else just offerred to nominate me, too. I suspect I can count on 5 admins to oppose as a bloc, so when I have 5 admins proposing to nominate me, I'll probably try RfA again. I'm at 3 now (perhaps 4, if the nominator in my original RfA would re-nominate). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

With multi-party support, I might try it again, but the "unfriends" (along with a proven sockpuppet) buried me last attempt, and it was a frustrating waste of time for everyone involved. I think I'd make a very good admin, actually, but there are some entrenched types who do not like boat-rockers, or conversely and often more significantly do not like boat-stabilizers when they are the ones trying to rock the boat, and these individuals have more wikifriends than I do, so it's been a losing proposition. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PS: In what way do you mean "tone down" my user page; I can think of at least three implications: 1) userboxiness; 2) self-revelation; 3) wikipolitical mini-essaying. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Trick shot

Unresolved

– Turn below commentary into Talk:Trick shot/Comments, for future article improvement.

So do you have any ideas on Trick shot? I noticed you cleaned it up alittle and I want to say thanks for that, but what do you mean by "outright b.s. statements? lol, anyway so do you have any major ideas on how to improve the article?Vandalfighter101 08:12, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There were several nonsensical things said in it, four that I recall (the two I recall in detail right this minute after several beers at the Bob Dylan concert tonight <burp>) were that no one but Massey has ever made the boot shot - I've seen one of his competitors do it on TV over a year ago - and that trick shots evolved from artistic billiards, which is actually a comparatively new discipline (if anything the inverse is true; people have been doing trick shots for hundreds of years). No offense intended; sometimes my edit summaries are more grumpy than intended. Anyway, the two main avenues of improvement I see are using Shamos's New Illustrated Encyclopedia of Billiards as a quotable source for a number of things (I was actually working on that, but my browser crashed and I lost a good 20min. worth of well-sourced edits. D'oh! I did manage to save {{Shamos1999}} to make citing it easier), and finding documentation for the Trick Shot World Championship and adding an entire section about that, with a (sourced) list of the events and the winners and runners up (both men and women for years in which two divisions exist); and there might have been more than one such event run by different sanctioners/sponsors over the decades (I'm not really sure). Also needs coverage of the Snooker Trick Shot Championship (may or may not be the actual name of the event; I misremember). And some discussion of who the most legendary players are. Later on, expanding the notable shots section would be in order, with actual illustrations of the shots (I think that CueTable.com's webware billiard table diagramming software may be useful for this). It isn't; I tried. Further down the line some home-made (i.e. copyright-unencumbered) videos illustrating a few trick shots would be cool. If I can master a few of them and figure out how the video-recording function of my new digital camera (mostly intended for still pictures) works, I might be able to pull that part off myself. Anyway, within a day or two I should have (re-!)contributed some sourced facts to the article, without my machine crashing in mid-edit. PS: Are you in WP:CUE#Participants yet? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:23, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

~~ok im gonna organize this so I dont miss anything.~~
ok my mistake about the boot shot.

When I say that trick shot evolved from artistic pool I say that because while people have actually been doing trick shots for a long time, artistic pool was the basis of actually competeing.
~~Snooker trick shot championship should be covered I agree, but we should have a separate section for that.~~
having a section on the most legendary players would be a good idea but might cause some people to think that the article is expressing POV.

I definetly agree with what you said about us having illistrations of trick shots and also vid recordings.

yes I am in the oarticipant section.

<fontcolor="red">Vandal<fontcolor="black">fighter101 08:43, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Your sig seems to be busted, unless that was intentional. (I've broken mine plenty of times in experimenting with it!). Looking at it more closely, I think the problem is that it says "fontcolor" instead of "font color". Anyway:
No worries; stuff happens.

That would need to be sourced; I remain skeptical. Artistic billiards is almost totally unknown in the US except among the most hard-core billiards nuts, and the US fields hardly any professional competitors in it (most of them are European, Asian and South American); meanwhile trick shot exhibitions in the US date to at least the late 1800s, and by the 1920s were one of the main sources of additional income for US pool pros, between championships (and remain so today; many pros do trick shot exhibitions for special events all the time, aside from the championships). The relationship between pool/snooker-style trick shots, artistic billiards and finger billiards (which has no article yet) is a complex one. The evidence I've come across to date seems to suggest that finger billiards (practitioners of which can achieve amazing english) was the main inspiration for artistic, while pool/snooker trick shots were their own animal, but in the last 2 generations there has been a lot of crossover. Documenting any of that reliably, however, will be a real challenge. Note: I also was not aware that you were drawing a distinction between artistic pool and artistic billiards AND trick shots. The clear facts are that trick shots have been around for hundreds of years, artistic (carom) billiards has been around for several decades as an organized sport, and artistic (pocket billiards) pool is comparatively quite new, an adaptation of artistic billiards to pool tables via the influence of classic trick shots. 03:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed; the US/pool and UK/snooker world championships should have their own subsections under "Competition" or whatever that section is called right now.

POV: I see what you mean; the way around that would be to profile world champions (and really in brief; if it's more than 2 sentences we're really talking about a stub player article instead).

Keen. I'm sure that will take a while. It would probably be more productive in the short term to document (televised competitions can be cited as sources with {{Cite episode}}) some of the more frequently used shots. I don't think we should go nuts here; probably ten very-well-described shots is more than enough. Per WP:NOT (Wikipedia is not a game guide, Wikipedia is not an instructional manual, etc.) we can't get too far into the detailia of how to set up these shots, just describe the basic layout, the desired result, and what makes it challenging).

Welcome aboard! Please check out WP:CUETODO if you have spare time; a lot of really basic work remains to be done, much less pushing things to Good and Featured Article status.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
PS: I wasn't aware of APTSA and Rossman's ArtisticPool.org, and their use of the term "artistic pool" in a sense distinct from "artistic billiards" (which is played on pocketless carom tables). I created a thoroughly-sourced overview at Trick shot of this "movement" based on those two sources. It definitely post-dates and was obviously inspired by artistic billiards, which is a couple of generations older. Because a.p. involves more than trick shots per se, I suspect that it will eventually need to be split into its own article. For now, I will ensure that Artistic pool redirects to it, and will also go update the artistic billiards article to mention it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:41, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Minor edits at Kevin Trudeau~~
Unresolved
– Split out the IPT material from Trudeau article to IPT article; "minor edits" issue addressed.
I've noticed your edits on the Kevin Trudeau page. My interest in that article is his activities related to health fraud, so I've been staying out of the pool league debate. I hope most, if not all, of the pool material can be moved to the IPT page. Anyhow, your edits are invariably marked as minor. There's an option in the "my preference" page under "Editing" that allows you to change this - arguably you've been making major edits that are marked as minor inadvertently. Cheers, Skinwalker 00:36, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Such as? I wouldn't consider any of my edits there to be major. The IPT merge I'm going to do would be major. I guess this is a very subjective issue, but I don't mark edits as major unless I think they might freak someone out. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, you're right - whether or not an edit is minor or major is a very subjective issue. I just looked at your recent contributions and saw all were marked minor. In the past, this has been correlated with the automatic minor flag being set, which is what I assumed. I typically use the minor button only for vandalism reversion and grammatical fixes. You just have a different idea about major vs. minor - nothing wrong with that. Cheers, Skinwalker 00:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I do in fact have that flag set, because I'm mostly a gnome, but I turn it off when I need to. Of course I also admit I forget to sometimes. If it's really a blunder, I usually do a non-minor followup null-edit with an edit summary that my last edit should not have been flagged as minor. You are right that I use/perceive "minor" differently; my rubric is that if I don't think it is something I would terribly care about, I don't want to bother other editors who have their watchlists set to not show minor edits. I'm unaware of any consensus discussions about what should and shouldn't be minor-flagged, but there probably should be one so we're all on the same page about it! — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:05, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Template:Chemical-importance~~
Unresolved
– File the TfD.
I am sorry, I have reverted your edits to this template. These articles should be categorised for lack of importance, not for lack of notability. These things are not the same. Since it was apparent that when they were in {{importance}} they were going to be deleted, because people not involved in any chemical wikiproject did decide that if they did not know the subject and could not see why it was important, it should be deleted (in stead of notifying a wikiproject and/or actually doing something about it). I had to revert/fight these prods/AfDs/template removals on a forthnightly basis, and being tired of that, it was decided to move them to an own template and category. So articles in that list are important enough, but the article does not state that yet, and therefore they are on a todo list of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Chemicals. I guess a similar reasoning is there for the music template. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 23:18, 14 September 2007 (UTC) similar reasoning is there for the music template. Hope this explains. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 23:18, 14 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds an awful lot like a curious variant of WP:OWNership to me, as in "we're special and our articles are special and should not be subject to the same processes as everything else." I don't really care all that much, but really there is no such thing as "important" in Wikipedia, except in the context of Wikipedia 1.0 prioritization. The "importance" concept in the context of whether an article is important enough to exist in Wikipedia at all, was soundly rejected as early as 2004, and replaced with notability. The comparison to the music version of the template isn't appropriate, as that template especially has no reason to exist any longer, having been replaced entirely by {{Notability|music}} (look at the code of Template:Music-importance). Not a big deal to me, but you'll need much better justification than this if (more likely when) {{Chemical-importance}} comes up at WP:TFD. I'm likely to take it there myself, because this is not how WikiProjects are supposed to "importance"-tag articles for their own internal (or WP1.0) purposes; you instead use the |importance= parameter of the project's banner on the article's talk page. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 13:52, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Words as words~~
Looks as though your proposal to move from italics to quote marks has hit the complacency wall, as has happened before on this issue. I've a mind to start a new section asking for consensus on actual wording. As I said, the biggest problem for me is the awkward boundary between noun phrase and longer units (italics vs quotes), which takes a bit of skill to determine. Both styles are still used in MOS, would you believe. What is the best strategy? Changing totally to quote marks is easy enough for MOS and submanuals (30 mins' work with global replacements using Word), but it will cause a massive back-compatibility problem. Do you have a mind to recommend either system, as long as it's consistent within an article? Tony (talk) 01:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That compromise would work for me; there are articles in which italics-for-examples does not cause parseability problems; do think that the MOS pages should abandon it, and that the MOS should recommend quotes but allow italics where they will not cause parseability problems (but am flexible; these are preferences not demands. :-) Personally, I am not very concerned about MOS having backward compatibility problems; they'll sort themselves out eventually, but perhaps others do care about them a lot. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:57, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~XHTML at Kilogram~~
Resolved
– Everyone seems to be happy now.
Hi,
Just FYI, XHTML does allow elements to occur inside <li> elements. The relevant declarations from the XHTML 1.0 Strict DTD (taken from http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/dtds.html) are grouped here for your convenience:
~~<!ENTITY % block "p | %heading; | div | %lists; | %blocktext; | fieldset | table"> <!ENTITY % Flow "(#PCDATA | %block; | form | %inline; | %misc;)*"> <!ELEMENT li %Flow;>~~
~~Expanding the parameter entities defined in the first two declarations, we see that the third declaration is equivalent to:~~
~~<!ELEMENT li (#PCDATA | p | %heading; | div | %lists; | %blocktext; | fieldset | table | form | %inline; | %misc;)*>~~
which is either an invalid declaration (if there's something wrong with one of the parameter entities — unlikely, IMHO, though I'll admit that I've not scoured the DTD looking for errors on the W3C's part), or a mixed-content element declaration for <li> elements, with elements being among the permitted child elements.
—Ruakh_TALK 20:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, of course you can use p inside li; that wasn't the issue. The main issue is that you can't open a p without closing it, and the secondary one is that you don't need p inside li; it's just redundant. I would have gone into this, but edit summaries are pretty short. :-) PS: In talk page at that article I mention that I understand the "beautification" idea, but this is something that needs to be done properly, system-wide, by the developers, and I support a move at WP:VPT to urge them to do so, as it also affects line spacing with inline references and inline cleanup templates, not just superscripted content. But we can't have every other article randomly outright abusing XHTML markup to achieve line spacing effects willy-nilly or pretty soon wiki article source code will be impenetrable to the average editor. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's true that you can't open a p without closing it in XHTML; but we're not writing XHTML, we're writing MediaWiki markup. MediaWiki writes XHTML, and does so correctly. Your claim that the p is redundant in this case is simply mistaken; it serves an important role here. (I'd explain, but I rather suspect that you didn't read the wiki markup carefully, as you assumed that it was written by Luddites. Now that you know there's a method to it, it's easier for you to simply take a look and understand what its purpose is.)
~~As for the sup-thing, I completely agree with you, as you can see from the edit history and the talk-page; but that's unrelated to the li/p-thing.~~
~~—Ruakh_TALK 20:20, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]~~
What "important role" is it trying to serve? As for MediaWiki putting HTML into wikimarkup is not wikimarkup it is putting HTML into wikimarkup. While MediWiki itself can correct some XHTML errors on the fly when people use obsolete and otherwise malformed HTML code, it cannot do this in all cases, so writing correct code is a good practice. At least as importantly it has to be remembered that WP is open content, and while some repuprosings of it make use of MediaWiki, others (such as re-use of WP material at ask.com and many other places) do not, and use the WP database (raw code as entered by editors) directly, so MW's compensation abilities are of questionable relevance in the big picture. Anyway, I'm not trying to get into a geeker-than-thou organ-waving match with you. I just want to the code to be clean, and for (X)HTML to not be used when it does not need (distinguish "I need" from "I prefer") to be used, because it is an entry barrier to editing by non-geek editors and is a major vector for errors. I'm highly skeptical that what you are trying to do with <li> cannot be accomplished by a different and less brittle means, though I've been known to be wrong before of course. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:33, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's MediaWiki markup; MediaWiki actually parses what you're understandably thinking of as (X)HTML, and re-assembles everything its own way. When there are two kinds of markup for a given construct (an (X)HTML-like kind of markup and a WYSIWYG-like kind of markup), they're internally converted to the same construct before the XHTML is generated.

The p elements are needed for the very simple reason that each list item contains multiple paragraphs. (This, BTW, is why I assumed you thought p elements were forbidden within li elements; you were removing necessary markup in the name of XHTML validity, so I assumed you thought the necessary markup was invalid XHTML. Now I see that you simply didn't realize it was necessary.)

Any mirror worth its salt will have a full library for parsing wiki code the way MediaWiki does. That said, if it's terribly important to you, we can add all the end-tags. To me they seem like the kind of clutter that deters less technically-minded editors — the less (X)HTML-style markup, the better — but I do see the benefits of being more usable by broken mirrors.

—Ruakh_TALK 20:56, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I stand corrected; I just tried this in a sandbox, and you are right that it doesn't handle paragraphs in XHTML-formatted lists unless they are forced with a p element. That seems kind of silly and unintuitive, but oh well. I wonder why they would have abandoned wikimarkup parsing but only with respect to paragraphization (i.e. '''ing for boldface, etc., still work) inside XHTML (or in your terms "(X)HTML-style") list items. Makes no sense to me, but I see what you were after with that markup. I think it is good to have the , since it reinforces that elements need to close, and that fact is important in many cases even in MediaWiki-parsed pages. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Re: "I think it is good to have the , since it reinforces that elements need to close […]": Oh, an evangelism argument! You found my weak spot. You win, I concede. End-tags it is. —Ruakh_TALK 14:16, 29 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Heh. May the Gods of Good Coding be praised. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:00, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~NIFlagInWikipedia userbox~~
Resolved
– Just an FYI.
A page you nominated for deletion has been renominated. To take part in the discussion, see Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Beano ni/UserBoxes/NIFlagInWikipedia (2nd nomination). Lurker (said · done) 15:01, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Noted. Thanks. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:02, 1 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]~~
~~Matrona~~
Hi: I have removed my attempt at fact-checking the article, and I apologize for not having been more complete. I should note, however, that my summary on removing the no-wiki comment ("remove no-wiki comment") was arguably more precise than yours on placing it there ("just some general improvements"). I should note also that you added a citation tag to a sentence that you added in January. Having noted these things, I leave the article to more capable editors. Jlittlet 05:39, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If the biblio. stuff you added and then removed was actually relevant, then by all means please add it back, and use it to cite facts in the article. My objection was to removal of the refs cleanup tag, since the article (with or without the biblio section) was not citing any sources for anything. And, I don't exempt myself from any fault for that, which is why I {{fact}}-tagged my own addition. I was sloppy or tired or something that day and forgot to cite my source, so I'm shaming myself for it. :-) Anyway, sorry if I ticked you off; that wasn't the intent. Nor was it to besmirch your three books, but rather to say "use <ref> and {{Cite book}} so we have refs so we have actual ref. citation." :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:47, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Too kind!~~
Resolved
– Just a chat.
~~Thanks, SMcCandlish. I'm touched, and thankful for your authoritative input. Me? I'm just a technician with a few ideas. Tony (talk) 07:42, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]~~
It's more the fortitude and "natural leadership" as they call it. It takes a lot of work to watchlist the MOS as attentively as you do and prevent its daily corruption with balderdash. I get a bit irritated with people who accuse you of WP:OWN in there, because you're fulfilling a de facto role, the weight of which no one else is willing to approach, and which would be fulfilled with effectively the same results even if there were another doing it (effectively; if it were done ineffectively, all hell would of course break loose). It's a "wikijob", and you're doing it well. So, kudos where due, for the die-hard effort. I even reacted negatively to your protectiveness on my first foray into the MOS's guts, but you've long since converted me. If I totally had my selfish way, I'd make probably 150 changes to the MoS + subpages, but I've been convinced that this isn't the way to go; it is better to adapt to the established guidelines (spaced em-dashes now look weird to me, after only a month, etc.) and to pursue strongly-desired changes gradually. It takes a lot of patience to deal with the impatience of others. I've seen your patience line get crossed a few times recently, so I thought a show of appreciation of your reserve-when-it-holds might be welcome. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Spacing after the decimal point~~
Resolved
– Just a chat.
~~Hi. Just wanted to thank you for your change to the title on the MOSNUM talk page :-) Thunderbird2 09:06, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]~~
Most welcome. It was actually hindbrain-nagging at me for a while, without my quite seeing it, and then it just sort of whacked me that the entire discussion was biased. I still hold to my opinions, but shooting a fish in a barrel versus wrestling a shark with one's bare hands in the open ocean are two very different versions of "I caught a fish". If my (or your) arguments stand, they should do so without crutches, but also without having to balance on one leg while being shoved. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:37, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Images~~
Resolved
– Decline involvement.
If you have a problem with people on inappropriate image-deleting sprees, the best place to take it up is probably WT:NFC. Though you may need a leather hide and some persistance, if you're going to take on the "no fair use" and "any procedural irregularity demands instant annihilation" brigade. Types like Zscout will eventually respect consensus, if you can achieve it there. Jheald 10:59, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll have to pass; am already knee-deep in various other contentious wiki-issues, enough that I have hardly any time for actual article writing until some of those are resolved. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:26, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~You can blame me~~
Resolved
– Just an FYI.
~~see!?? BTW-- Wake UP! <g> Cheers! // FrankB 19:00, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]~~
~~Noted. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]~~
~~WikiProject Biography Newsletter 5~~
Resolved
– Just projectspam.
{{Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Outreach/Newsletter/Issue 005}} To receive this newsletter in the future, please list yourself in the appropriate section here. This newsletter was delivered by the automated R Delivery Bot 15:58, 7 October 2007 (UTC) .[reply]
~~My Signature~~
Resolved
– Moot; sig. already changed.
~~Hmm? That is a few days old now. I have fixed my signature, EVula gave it the thumbs up. Doyley Talk 15:04, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]~~
~~The problem I ran into may have been from a few days ago then. The current one looks fine. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:15, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]~~
Thanks, I wrote this one myself. Where did you run into the problem? Doyley Talk 15:17, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Trying to recall. It was on a "Wikpedia talk:"-namespace page, in which your sig was not "sticking" to your indented replies, but going to the line below, with no indentation, presumably because of the spacing problems mentioned by EVula. I fixed it in-place where I found that problem. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:21, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ah ok, Many thanks! Doyley Talk 15:23, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Agreement~~
I'm really not difficult to agree with. The only things I object to in the MOS are prescriptive rules which are not in fact the consensus of English usage as a whole. Either stick to what English always does, or use normally or we recommend, and I will not dispute it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's a guideline, though, not a policy, so everything it is "we recommend" by definition. And the purpose of WP:MOS is to be prescriptive, as to what to do on WP; it is not a general publication for off-WP consensus as to what "proper" English is, what English always or usually does, what the differences between various dialects and registers are, etc. Its sole purpose is to help editors write articles that will be maximally useful to our readers (especially via consistency and lack of ambiguity), that's all. This will necessarily differ in a few ways from traditional style guides, which are both more permissive in some ways ("there's no standard about this, so just do whatever you like") and at times excessively dogmatic about the "correctness" of something that is entirely arbitrary. These conflicts come up especially when it comes to the limitations of the medium (online media in general, and WP in particular in some cases), the needs for balancing a multicultural editorship and readership without it being a freeforall, accessibility and usability issues, need for precision, and various other concerns that a general style guide doesn't have to focus on because it is written for students writing term papers, journalists, and the like. Aside from all that, there is precious little that "English always does". Just as even American scientific publications have abandoned typesetters' quotation, despite it being the traditional "consensus of English usage as a whole" in America, to most people, for a long time, WP has to defy a few prescriptive traditions (yes, even as it is being prescriptive in its own way). So, I'm not sure how MOS can every make you happy, with the expectations you bring. Another way of looking at it is, if you fork a copy of it over to WikiText, to serve as an online reference work for general usage, it would rapidly diverge from the Wikipedia MOS, because its purposes, audience, scope and very nature would be radically different.— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:36, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The way to "defy a prescriptive tradition" is to say you don't have to follow it, which is distinct from you have to use this other method. I encourage the first, within reason; I object strenuously to the second. The most effective way to say you don't have to follow tradition is to enumerate the disadvantages of the traditional method, and the advantages of the new one; to be convincing, it helps to add the advantages of the old and the disads of the new. In short, treat our editors as adults, in the hope that most of them are, or can be persuaded to pretend to be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~WP:ELG and relationship to WP:FLAG~~
Please see WT:ELG, WT:FLAG, and my talk. FLAG is still a proposed guideline, and even though there may be consensus there, it doesn't apply yet. There are already others objecting to your changes, visually obvious or not. O ₂ (息 • 吹) 00:10, 14 October 2007 (GMT)
You are not expressing a clear understanding of how guidelines work. Guidelines do not dictate consensus or best practices; the opposite is true. A guideline doesn't "apply" at all, like a law (and like official WP Policies can be said to, since in several cases like WP:COPYRIGHT and WP:BLP they are external impositions from the legal department); a guideline "summarizes and reflects" extant consensus on best practices. Cf. the talk page of WP:NFT for a similarly misguided attempt by a few editors to label WP:NFT either {{essay}} or {{disputed}} because they had some problems with its wording and tone.

I would be perfectly comfortable with putting {{guideline}} on WP:FLAG since it has been through the proposal process, with markably little strife. I don't see any need for me to be the one to do that, so I haven't bothered, but I'm sure someone else will.

I have no idea what you mean by "visually non-obvious" objections; on Wikipedia there is no such thing. I will be happy to check out the discussions you point me to, of course.

My objections to your editing with regard to this are a) you have been reverting without a substantive reason expressed for doing so (maybe you've already provided one at the talk pages mentioned, so that may be a moot point), and reverting very heavyhandedly, with apparent disregard for what you were reverting (you reverted a large number of formatting twiddles that had nothing to do with the ELG vs. FLAG issue at all.) Please be more careful. I apologize if I snapped at you, but honestly I am completely shocked to being reverted so broadly; I think the last time that happened to me was at WP:MOSNUM ca. April or June, and I edit nearly every day, so I genuinely think your rv tactics in this case were highly unusual. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:52, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Intro~~
Resolved
– Just an FYI.
~~Howdy, just fyi, I reverted and commented at Template talk:Intro#Shortcut dablink. I can't think of a good solution atm. --Quiddity 19:16, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]~~
~~Noted. I replied over there. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:09, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]~~
~~Well Done~~
~~Wikipedia:Manual of Style (flags) well done on this, you put alot of effort into it.--Padraig 20:41, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]~~
Thanks. It seemed important, and not something that was going to achieve consensus without consistency shepherding. Glad it worked out! (So far; it's only been designated a guideline for a day, so I'm not counting the eggs yet...) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:10, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Template:jct and nonbreaking spaces~~
Can you look at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (exit lists)#Nonbreaking spaces, and also at a few of the exit lists that use the template (check that the template is used in the exit list, not only in the infobox) to make sure I placed the nbsps correctly? Thank you. --NE2 17:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Looking at the rendered source code is instructive (I've "cheated" for our reading benefit by forcibly line-breaking this and shortening the image URLs):~~
<dd><a href="/wiki/Image:NY-100.svg" class="image" title="NY-100.svg"><img alt="" src="25px-NY-100.svg.png" width="25" height="20" border="0" /></a><a href="/wiki/Image:NY-119.svg" class="image" title="NY-119.svg"><img alt="" src="25px-NY-119.svg.png" width="25" height="20" border="0" /></a> <a href="/wiki/New_York_State_Route_100" title="New York State Route 100">NY 100</a>/<a href="/wiki/New_York_State_Route_119" title="New York State Route 119">NY 119</a> (Tarrytown Road) </nowiki>
It looks to me like there needs to be a ... (i.e. a "nowiki" in the template code) enclosing the first shield through ...NY 100</a>/, to a) Keep the icons from ever being separated from the beginning of the text, and to keep the "/" attached to the first of the text as well.
There are several of the following in the template code: {{#if:{{{3|}}}|{{#if:{{{to2|}}}| to |{{#if:{{{name1|}}}{{{dir1|}}}| / |/}}}} which appear to only put spacing around the "/" sometimes. I think it would be more readable if spaced. If done that way, I think some of this code would be redundant since it would be saying "if x applies, do this, and if it doesn't apply, do the same thing". A non-breaking space appears before "(Tarrytown Road)", as the #160 entity instead of the nbsp entity. Not sure why or where that came from without looking at the template code again, but it is already in a nowrap so it doesn't seem to serve any purpose. Doesn't hurt anything though.
~~I'm going to insert a maximal example here so we can look at everything:~~
{{jct | state=CA | I | 40 | I | 280 | I | 80 | dir1=E | dir2=N | dir3=W | to1=yes | to2=yes | to3=yes | name1=name1 | name2=name2 | name3=name3 | road=road | city1=city1 | city2=city2 | city3=city3 | city4=city4 }}

~~To I-40 e (name1) / I-280 n (name2) / I-80 w (name3) – city1, city2, city3, city4Module:Jct error: Invalid "to" argument~~
~~Rendered code:~~
<a href="/wiki/Image:I-40_%28CA%29.svg" class="image" title="I-40 (CA).svg"><img alt="" src="20px-I-40_%28CA%29.svg.png" width="20" height="20" border="0" /></a><a href="/wiki/Image:I-280_%28CA%29.svg" class="image" title="I-280 (CA).svg"><img alt="" src="24px-I-280_%28CA%29.svg.png" width="24" height="20" border="0" /></a><a href="/wiki/Image:I-80_%28CA%29.svg" class="image" title="I-80 (CA).svg"><img alt="" src="20px-I-80_%28CA%29.svg.png" width="20" height="20" border="0" /></a> To <a href="/wiki/Interstate_40_%28California%29" title="Interstate 40 (California)">I-40</a> E (name1) to <a href="/wiki/Interstate_280_%28California%29" title="Interstate 280 (California)">I-280</a> N (name2) to <a href="/wiki/Interstate_80_%28California%29" title="Interstate 80 (California)">I-80</a> W (name3), road – <a href="/w/index.php?title=City1%2C_California&action=edit" class="new" title="City1, California">city1</a>, <a href="/w/index.php?title=City2%2C_California&action=edit" class="new" title="City2, California">city2</a>, <a href="/w/index.php?title=City3%2C_California&action=edit" class="new" title="City3, California">city3</a>, <a href="/w/index.php?title=City4%2C_California&action=edit" class="new" title="City4, California">city4</a>
~~Okay, so I think what we are aiming for something more like this (additions in ALL CAPS though of course that would be wrong as real code):~~
<a href="/wiki/Image:I-40_%28CA%29.svg" class="image" title="I-40 (CA).svg"><img alt="" src="20px-I-40_%28CA%29.svg.png" width="20" height="20" border="0" /></a><a href="/wiki/Image:I-280_%28CA%29.svg" class="image" title="I-280 (CA).svg"><img alt="" src="24px-I-280_%28CA%29.svg.png" width="24" height="20" border="0" /></a><a href="/wiki/Image:I-80_%28CA%29.svg" class="image" title="I-80 (CA).svg"><img alt="" src="20px-I-80_%28CA%29.svg.png" width="20" height="20" border="0" /></a> To <a href="/wiki/Interstate_40_%28California%29" title="Interstate 40 (California)">I-40</a> E (name1) to <a href="/wiki/Interstate_280_%28California%29" title="Interstate 280 (California)">I-280</a> N (name2) to <a href="/wiki/Interstate_80_%28California%29" title="Interstate 80 (California)">I-80</a> W (name3), road – <a href="/w/index.php?title=City1%2C_California&action=edit" class="new" title="City1, California">city1</a>, <a href="/w/index.php?title=City2%2C_California&action=edit" class="new" title="City2, California">city2</a>, <a href="/w/index.php?title=City3%2C_California&action=edit" class="new" title="City3, California">city3</a>, <a href="/w/index.php?title=City4%2C_California&action=edit" class="new" title="City4, California">city4</a>
Depending on exactly how the template is using that other template to get the goods, that new  might have to be even later. The rendered markup is a little redundant in parts, but this is unavoidable without having this template send the embedded one a new value telling it not to make its own nowrap spans, and of course that second template would have to be modified to be able to process that. Probably not worth the trouble. Ideally, it would be best if the N/S/E/W stuff was inside the nowrap span of the "I-40" stuff; I'm skeptical that something something else would not break between "something" and "something else" in some browsers. Maybe not enough of big deal to worry about.
Was this any help? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:59, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Stanislavski and related~~
Hello. It's good to see you trying to clean up those Method acting and Stanislavski's 'system' articles. However, looking at the last edits on the Stan. I've reverted them. Your changes are not in line with standard critical usage. If you'd like the citations, let me know. But it is Stanislavski's 'system' - lower case and 'marked', and it is the Method - capitalized. You were also confusing a "quotation" with a word 'used' in a unusual way. Regards, DionysosProteus 00:58, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some of those changes have to be restored (though I'm unlikely to bother doing it myself), because the extant text is ungrammatical. When we speak of his system, we refer to it as a system, not a "system", which is his term/formatting not ours. Do not confuse the personal style preferences of the progenitor of the theory with third-party commentary on the theory. Also, per WP:MOS we use double-quotes, not single quotes, even where this "system" usage would be appropriate in that article, which is very few places. I do understand what you are getting at, but the usage is simply outright incorrect in many places there, as is abuse of capitalized "Method" at the Method acting article, which frequently confuses "the Method" as a proper name with references to the Method as a method (cf. "the system" as a system), in which case it is not a proper noun. As far as other issues like 'Stanislavski's "system"' (which is fine in quotation) and 'the Stanislavski System' which is which is how a neutral third-party publication like WP should more generally refer to it, it's the same probleml again. It does not matter that theatre publications like to honor Stanislavski's weird formatting for traditionalism reasons; we are not such a publication, and not have a traditionalist theatrical audience. All that said, I'm not going to fight with you about this. I have no opinion on the systems in question, and am just doing WP:NC and WP:MOS cleanup work. You can certainly expect that others will come in from time to time and make the same fixes. If you want to categorically challege them and get some kind of exception or clarification added to the Manual of Style, you'll need to take that up at WT:MOS. Also, I am having no such use-mention distinction confusion as you claim that I am; rather, you are mistaken in how that distinction is handled in Wikipedia according to the MOS; please see the sections there on quotations and italicization in particular; single-quotes are only used as quotation-marks-inside-quotation-marks, never by themselves, even for mention cases (either italics can be used, or double-quotes, or single-quotes when inside of double-quotes). For the few cases in the article where is is appropriate to retain Stanislavski's "scare quotes" I think what you want is double quotation marks, not single (regardless of Stanislavski's original, which probably did use single, since he's European, but WP consistent uses the North American style doubled ones), since MOS forbids that, and probably not italics since it doesn't convey quite the same implication as the scare-quoting. PS: Stanislavski is misspelled as Stanislavsky in the names of several sources; someone needs to look up those sources and see if the typos are WP editor typos or those of the authors/publishers of the cited works. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:16, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I wasn't clear. It is not merely Stanislavski's personal preference, but the standard way of refering to his 'system' in the critical literature; that is, in scholarly third-party commentary on the theory. I can provide a heap of citations if you're skeptical. You'll need to point me to the correct subsection of Wikipedia:Manual of Style because having taken a look I can't see where it insists on "this" over 'this', since it is not the use for a quotation that I am referring to, but the use when using a word in an unusual way. i.e. a 'grammar' of acting, suggesting the use of the word grammar in an unfamiliar way, rather than actually citing a quotation "grammar" of acting, he said. Re: the Method. I can only see one instance of what you're referring to in the intro (having scanned quickly). The article needs a lot of work, but it is standard to refer to the Method, as in Books on the Method. He taught the Method. Both of those are proper name uses. Again, I can provide citations of scholarly works if need be. With Stan, it's precisely because it's not a system that it's 'system'. Its not there as a quotation of what he said. It's that the word 'system' is the best approximation for what it was. Most commentators follow this practice. You point to the single/doube US/Euro usage. How do you distinguish between saying that you're quoting someone and merely highlighting if you use identical marks? This isn't a scare quote because it carries no negative intention and is used to specify use--i.e., I'm not quoting. It's odd that you say it's a US/Euro thing, because I'm fairly certain I learnt the distinction from the MLA when studying in the States, but I don't have the manual to hand. Glancing at some of my sources, they are both UK & US. RE: spelling of the name. It's Russian, so beset with problems. Constantin Stanislavski is the biggest google hit. It's what his books in English use. It's not ideal. But consistency is to be encouraged. In general for all these points, my understanding is that the wikiuse should reflect the majority use outside of wikiland. Stanislavski's 'system' is that. DionysosProteus 01:47, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Again, I do understand the point you are trying to make, I simply don't buy it. I've gone into this at less conversational depth at WT:MOS#Problems in theatre land. The main issue is that using the the 'system' notation (aside from using single quotations marks against MOS) is that it violates WP:NPOV. Theatre press publication do not have an NPOV rule, so this problem does not arise there. As for the MOS quotation marks and use–mention distinction stuff, I normally refuse to do people's guideline homework for them, but I'll make an exception in this case. Will take a few minutes. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:16, 19 October 2007 (UTC)Make that several hours; got sidetracked. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
WP:MOS#Quotation marks:

Double or single
Quotations are enclosed within "double quotes". Quotations within quotations are enclosed within 'single quotes'.

While it did not state this specifically as of this writing, everything in this section that addresses quotation marks used for actual quotations also addresses other uses of them; just a textual oversight that I'm about to go fix. Done. The "Quotation marks" section now leads with

The term quotation(s) in the material below also includes other uses of quotation marks such as for song/chapter/episode titles, unattributable aphorisms, literal strings, "scare-quoted" passages and constructed examples.

I imagine that this will stay in there; it certainly does not reflect a change in advice, just a spelling of it out, because some of the examples in that section did not consist of actual quotations per se, but things like aphorisms and other non-quotation uses of quotation marks. The MOS itself is full of usage of "scare quoting" of contructed examples and of terms, where italicization of them wouldn't work well (though it otherwise prefers italicization for its purposes).

See also Scare quotes#Neutrally distancing.

— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~MOS~~
You and Noetica have been doing a fine job in overhauling the page: great to see. I do have a few concerns about the ellipsis section, now that I'm back on Earth after a horrendous deadline-week in the real world. But perhaps I'm misunderstanding it. Tony (talk) 07:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What are the concerns? Some of what Noetica put in there was simply wrong, some of it unsourced and conflicting with established sources, like "... .", some of it impenetrable, other parts great. I tried to clean that up. You then cleaned up my cleanup, and I then did another round. I'm okay with it as it stands as of my last edit, but I've been staring at it a lot, so I may be simply temporarily unable to see the problems in it. I don't find the "is suspension/pause usage really an ellipsis?" matter to be of any concern; the flow from "use it this way, use it that way, and when you have to combine them both, use them this third way" is more important. Other than that, I'm pretty open on it. I just don't want to see nonsensical instructions get back in there. The yesterday versions were just unparseable. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:51, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~My answer~~
[Thanks for your note at my talk page. Here is my answer, as I have posted there.]
SMcCandlish:
Thank you for bringing your issues here. Here are some particular replies to things you say above:
~~Yes, I do feel your edit summaries have been "arrogant" (your word), and more to the point WP:OWNish and seemingly intended to intimidate other editors.~~
One editor's boldness and directness is another editor's arrogance. I find many of your edit summaries and your high-handed and often patronising dismissal of lesser mortals arrogant; you obviously consider them bold and direct, as I see from what you say above.
~~Their import appears to be "don't dare revert me, or I will edit war with you or get nasty with you on the talk page".~~
My record will show that I very rarely edit-war. I nearly always discuss, at length. And in the course of discussion I will be polite to the polite, and rude to the rude. I do quickly revert edits that I judge patently ill-founded or ill-considered. So do you. So what?
~~I realize I can be abrasive myself, ...~~
~~Yep!~~
... but I don't go out of my way to be so. I was polite (I think) both times I criticized your edit summaries today, and only did so because I believed that a pattern was in evidence and was a hindrance to consensus building and normal editing. I also feel that your edits have been incautious and not thought through enough in some cases.
To the extent that you understood them, right? Quite frankly, anyone who fails to grasp the universal consensus concerning how brackets and sentence endings work is not much of a critic of these things. Sure some points I put forward needed clarifying; I would have been amazed if they didn't! And I joined in the clarifying myself. But it's impossible to do these things in a way that pleases everyone. There are a couple of things I put in because I knew the point could be missed by an over-zealous pedant who might take them over-literally, and not apply them with discretion.
~~While I agree that the ellipsis section needed editing, much of what you put in there wasn't logically parseable, and some of it was just plain incorrect.~~
Whistling in the dark. Parse "wasn't logically parseable" like this: "wasn't understood by SMcCandlish". Such self-centredness! And what, pray tell, was "incorrect" in "some of it"? Which of it? How? By whose lights? (Let me guess... CMOS?)
Thinking back, your edits of substance appear to get partially reverted or edited into unrecognizability more than anyone else's in recent memory (by contrast, PMAnderson's often simply get reverted, period, because they only reflect his position, and often seem to be WP:BRD actions, so their reversion is expected, perhaps even intended.)
~~A fatuous and unsubstantiated claim.~~
~~Further, I understand being a solid debater, but there's a difference between defending one's arguments well and taking everything personally.~~
Don't get me wrong (again). I don't take this so personally as you do. Mainly, I'm irritated because you have wasted a lot of my time. As for defending my arguments, I have no trouble doing that by reason alone – setting aside mere appeals to authority and like fallacies.
Your unwillingness to let sleeping dogs lie, in repeatedly bashing editors in one dispute for their perceived errors in other ones in the past, is a debate (if it can be called that) tactic more suited to Usenet than Wikipedia.
My unwillingness? It is you who persist in obvious error, against the world at large. Every style guide that addresses "that" issue disagrees with you, and so do all publishers. But rather than admit your error, as I suggested, you rattle on about my simply having a margin over you in the debate. That's what I get, for making the effort to show you something you could learn from! And I never have "bashed" you. You're too sensitive.
I don't have anything against you personally, but some of your behaviors at WP:MOS and WT:MOS have been very grating (not just to me). I do not go so far as to say disruptive, but close enough for discomfort.
Rubbish. You are too enmeshed, too flustered perhaps, to come to a clear judgement about all this. Simply put, you have been challenged in way that discomfits you, and you're not quite sure how to respond, except with denial, blame-shifting, and projection.
~~I manged to tick people off in my early forays into the MOS, so my horse is not very high.~~
That's better. Focus on that fact. So have I, ticked people off. I don't care. I am helpful and polite (some would say painfully so!) to anyone who is civilised enough to accept such an approach. But I grow impatient after a while with arrogant editors who seek too rapidly and too inexpertly to "correct" others.
~~Anyway, while this is critical, it is intended constructively, and isn't some declaration of enemyhood or any such nonsense, just a request to tone it down a notch. I will endeavor to do likewise.~~
~~Tell you what: how about if you go and do likewise first, and I'll manage my own behaviour my own way, in my own good time. Deal?~~
~~Another way of putting this is that I find that your actual actions do not mesh with your statements in your #Not editing for a while comments up top.~~
That is mainly about a ridiculous and disruptive dispute that I chose not to be involved in. Tony knows very well what it's about. He has behaved very poorly, in my opinion: and he knows that is my opinion. I am still unsure that I will stick around, if that dispute is not settled soon.
~~If any of it is relating in some way to my own edit summaries being brusque ("Shorten longwinded example", etc.), they're just short and to the point; ...~~
~~O sure! They're OK... aren't they?~~
~~All that said, I don't think any MOS regular suffers foolish edits lightly, and we all pretty mercilessly revert anything that doesn't work.~~
Why are you telling me such things? I was here in early 2005. Then, after a one-year break, I've been here since early 2006. The fact that you haven't seen me around doesn't mean I wasn't around, you know.
Happens to me and Tony too (both of us have been editing the MOS long and hard enough that we are more apt than most to not do something boneheaded in there, but we still do boneheaded things in there, inevitably). It's nothing personal, and isn't an attack.
You both do boneheaded things. Tony is a fine editor, and I have learned things from him. He, in turn, has learned from dialogue that he and I have had concerning our own joint efforts at MOS. He has said so, publicly. I may well learn from this interaction with you, and from some of your work at MOS and its talk page. But spare me your lecturing, young SMcCandlish. I am not impressed, and am ahead of you on a couple of fronts, I fear. Of course, I don't expect you to see that, any more than I will concede the converse about you.
Now, is that all? I have other things to do.
– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 12:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Replied at User talk:Noetica. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:03, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]~~
One thing's for sure: we both talk a lot. I'm going to stop in a moment, now that feelings are sufficiently vented. I strongly disagree with your analysis at several points – to the extent that it can properly be called "analysis", rather than wild surmises and allegations about, for example, my "demanding" not to have my contributions edited! But there is obviously no point labouring things. Thanks once more for bringing the dispute here instead of clogging the MOS talk page, which is already overflowing. I don't know how much useful collaboration we can do, since I find your style as repellent as you find mine. And I judge you as self-deceiving as you judge me! Enjoy your editing at Wikipedia. Let's learn and move on.
– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 20:03, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. I've taken a Wiki break anyway. I was finding MOS to be too annoying to put up with for a bit (and no, not just because of your and my interaction). Will go over your reply later. No big hurry? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:17, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, no problem. Welcome back! The whole business of MOS and its dreary subsidiaries is tediousⁿ. I don't think much can be achieved using the present practices and protocols. I fear we'll never get a stable and truly reliable MOS under present conditions. It's no one's fault in particular. Tony is optimistic, I think; and my disposition tends that way also. But it doesn't matter how much talent and inspiration editors bring to the task, things regress really quickly. You have particular insights into the technicalities of HTML – which people fail to recognise or respect. Then again, perhaps your brilliance in that area "crowds out" a few insights that others might more readily come to. (Who knows? I'm speculating, that's all.) I have particular knowledge and skills too, but I can't deploy them very effectively at MOS if others are dazzled by their own bright guiding lights, as perhaps I am sometimes by my own. This sort of thing happens all the time.

We'll eventually catch up at WT:MOS, yes? (At least I have learned from you that convenient redirect for the talk page.)

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 09:47, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~Time to delete MOSHEAD?~~
~~Hi SMcC—It's been about to happen for weeks. Does one post a "speedydelete" at the top of the page, or what? Only an admin can do it, I suppose. Tony (talk) 08:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]~~
Shouldn't be deleted, since people refer to it; it should be redirected to the #section in MOS that it applies to, so that the links don't go red. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:16, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]